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Quick to Blame in Luge, and Showing No Shame

WHISTLER, British Columbia — Olympic officials treated the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian luge athlete, less as a tragedy than as an inconvenience.

The sport’s international governing body released a callous statement late Friday night, about 10 hours after Kumaritashvili died, publicly blaming the 21-year-old for his own death. Athletes were attaining speeds at the Whistler Sliding Center far exceeding what the track was designed for, but the track was not the problem. It was a user error, the statement implied.

Kumaritashvili failed to compensate properly as he entered Curve 16 before he crashed at nearly 90 miles per hour, the federation’s statement said. It added, “There was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track.”

A thorough investigation was supposed to have been conducted. Instead, the luge federation seemed more concerned about getting the track opened again for competition on Saturday than about taking a hard look at the conditions that might have contributed to Kumaritashvili’s death.

There was at least tacit admission Saturday morning that the course was dangerous: the ice had been contoured to direct sleds toward the center of the track. A high wooden wall had been erected just beyond the curve where Kumaritashvili died after crashing into a support post. Signs reading “wet paint” were still stuck to the wall when the first of two training runs began.

Padding was placed on exposed metal beams just before the finish line. And the men’s start was moved to the women’s start, a lower position that will slow maximum speeds by about five or six m.p.h.

Olympic officials insisted that the changes were not made for safety reasons, but rather to accommodate the emotional state of Kumaritashvili’s fellow athletes — a bogus notion.

Photo

A worker measuring the track’s temperature.Credit
Hans Deryk/Reuters

“They don’t know what the emotions of the athletes are, because they don’t see the athletes on a day-to-day basis,” said Wolfgang Staudinger, the Canadian Olympic team coach.

Officials said Kumaritashvili’s death was the first luge fatality since 1975. Several sliders and officials said it could not have been foreseen. But the idea that something terrible might happen here, on the fastest course in the world, was talked about publicly and feared for a year.

Frequent concerns were expressed about excessive speeds. Even Armin Zoeggeler of Italy, a two-time Olympic champion and a favorite here, had crashed on this track. On Thursday, after struggling to maintain control of her sled, Hannah Campbell-Pegg of Australia said, “To what extent are we just little lemmings that they throw down a track and we’re crash-test dummies?”

Canadian reporters said Saturday morning that they had been told privately during the week of concerns for the safety of four sliders — Kumaritashvili included. So many people knew of possible danger. So little was done to prevent it.

Canada’s decision to give minimal access to the Olympic track to athletes from other nations now seems to have been an unfortunate nationalistic impulse. This was done to give Canadians a home-field advantage in a program called Own the Podium. In the end, safety took a back seat to patriotism.

“I’m all for giving the advantage of the home track to the home country,” said Shiva Kannan Palan Keshavan, a 12-year veteran from India. “At the same time, everybody should get enough runs to be comfortable. Safety cannot be compromised.”

The president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, said in a news conference Saturday that officials should have listened more carefully to athletes’ concerns about the safety of the track. “I don’t claim to know all the technical details,” he said. “But one thing I know for sure, that no sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death. No sports mistake is supposed to be fatal.”

Saakashvili said he was glad officials had decided to raise the height of the wall on the part of the track where Kumaritashvili crashed. “The good news is that they built it now,” he said. “But I think the best news would be, in the future, if they listen more to the grievances of sportsmen.”

The sport’s leaders also should consider strengthening the qualification standards, especially for events on treacherous courses like the luge track.

Kumaritashvili had finished 55th out of 62 sliders on the World Cup circuit in the 2008-9 season and was ranked 44th out of 65 sliders in 2009-10. Before his crash, he had taken 25 training runs on the Whistler track — but 10 had begun at the novice, junior and women’s starts. By comparison, the average Canadian slider has taken 250 training runs.

“This is definitely something that has to be considered” by the International Luge Federation, said Staudinger, Canada’s coach. “We tightened already the rules a little bit prior to 2010. But looking back in 2002, we had exotic sliders. This could have happened in the previous Games, too. Unfortunately, it happened in the Vancouver Games.”

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Training was postponed for more than an hour Saturday as workers finished altering the track. Sun poked through the clouds, which hung low in the valley as dynamite explosions for avalanche control on Blackcomb Mountain boomed in the distance.

When the sliders took to the course, they wore a black stripe on their helmets in honor of Kumaritashvili. Three sliders did not participate in the training runs, including Levan Gureshidze, a fellow Georgian.

The memory of Kumaritashvili “is in our hearts,” said Kannan Palan Keshavan of India. And yet, he added: “We are professional athletes. We need to perform. The whole world is watching us.”

On the opening training run — the first since Kumaritashvili’s death — Tony Benshoof of the United States was the first slider down the hill. Asked about his emotions during that run, he said, “I’m not going to talk about that stuff.”

After the second run, Benshoof acknowledged that he thought “a little bit” about the death of a fellow racer. But, he said: “Luge is a tough sport. It takes a long time to master. That’s the bottom line. We could hash over it for hours. But at the end of the day, we’re going 95-98 miles an hour and we’re six inches off the ice. We get down a mile of track in 45 seconds. There’s an inherent risk.”

True, but if a track is to be opened to everyone, it should be safe for everyone.

Katie Thomas contributed reporting from Vancouver, British Columbia.

A version of this article appears in print on February 14, 2010, on Page SP1 of the New York edition with the headline: Quick to Blame in Luge, And Showing No Shame. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe